On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Pointed out to me on Facebook by Matt Brady:

A quick and dirty video guide to the history of those who wore the mask of the Question before Flashpoint. Includes interview footage of Dennis O'Neil, Greg Rucka, Rick Burchett and Jeffrey Combs.
( YouTube Video Embedded Here )

Well, Newsarama writer Vaneta Rogers - or her editor(s) - used stronger language for the headline, but it fits.

This is something that's been with us all for a long time now. Generations of readers and professionals, in fact. And since a lot of people sit on both "fan" and "creator" sides of the ledger at once, it's more than a little galling. And one is hard-pressed to nail down which reasons more so than others...

I know I've called it quits as a reader with more than one title for at least a couple of the reasons in this list.

(But not over item # 3, the diversity question. I was particularly pleased with how Miles Morales, Connor Hawke and Jaime Reyes were brought into being, to name three examples )

Anyway, have a read. It might not tell you anything you don't already know, but then again, you might look at it with fresh eyes this time 'round.

Okay...we're seeing more than a little bit about SHIELD on the web of late.

Wired and Gizmodo have reported that the US Defence Department's PR people backed away from technical advising on the Avengers movie specifically because of SHIELD, and their uncertainty over SHIELD's place in the scheme of things.

lawmultiverse provided a little commentary of their own on the subject, and it wasn't their first attempt to understand how SHIELD could fit into legal pictures either.

Today, rfmcdpei made his own mention of a blog entry from Andrew Barton where the issue of creators needing to understand exactly what their fictional creations are supposed to be and be capable of, even if that understanding doesn't get all the way to the paying audience in full detail.

Here's what Andrew said exactly:

You know what, though? The military is right. According to the Defense Department, their main problem is that they couldn't figure out where the US military stood in relation to S.H.I.E.L.D., which Wikipedia describes as an "espionage and secret military law-enforcement agency," which really narrows it down - and, hell, I imagine it's easy as hell to maintain secrecy over something like a giant flying aircraft carrier. S.H.I.E.L.D. has, from what I understand, been the subject of fan debates over just what it is for a good chunk of the last fifty years.

Answering questions like this is important. They define what you can and cannot do in a story, and as such reduce the unmanageability of everything being possible into more restricted channels that can guide the flow of a narrative. Something that is shadowy, nebulous, and ill-defined even to the people writing it does not lend itself well to the best writing. Creators need to know how their creations work, even if that information never filters down to the audience.

I've had my own understanding of what SHIELD is supposed to be - mainly informed by the stories of Bob Harras and Dan G. Chichester published in the Nick Fury vs. SHIELD mini-series and the later relaunch of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD in the 1990's when SHIELD was reinvented for the first time, and somewhat further filled out by Jonathan Hickman's work on Secret Warriors and SHIELD in recent years. Among other sources.

It's my hope as a fan that we can get back to that framework: SHIELD as a planetary defence/intelligence service. The ultimate Blue Berets and as flexible as need be to handle the work in the back alleys as on the battlefield.

Your distance-travelled will vary, of course...

Still plowing through corrections on pages for Retail Therapy, actually. The correction process has proven as educational as the original drawing itself, if you can believe it. Some day, I hope to spell the details out for one and all.

Stay tuned...

Yours,

Dwight